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Judge Wanger speaks at water meeting

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 18, 2010 at 6:53 am

From the Fresno Bee:

“Federal Judge Oliver W. Wanger knows that many of his legal decisions in the state’s ongoing water wars have earned him a reputation in the agricultural community as “the bad guy in the black hat.”

But Wanger, the keynote speaker at a half-day water conference sponsored by the Madera County Farm Bureau, gave the very crowd that has been stung by many of these rulings a treatise on water history and politics — and how laws passed by Congress have bound him in the ongoing debate.

“I’m not just some judge making an arbitrary ruling,” Wanger said. “We cannot rewrite the law. We can only follow the law.”

These laws include the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Central Valley Project Improvement Act — which gave endangered species equal footing with meeting water needs of farms and cities. The laws govern many of the decisions before Wanger in U.S. District Court in Fresno. … “

Read more from the Fresno Bee by clicking here.

February 18, 2010 · Filed Under San Joaquin Valley

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